1 “Black Warrior Dynasts”: Afrocentricity and the New World

1 “Black Warrior Dynasts”: Afrocentricity and the New World [eng rev] By Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano The Olmec civilization with its colossal basalt heads and massive earthenworks has always attracted pseudoscientific diffusionist claims. A traffic policeman would have been needed to keep the waves of Libyans, Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, Shang Chinese, Polynesians, Mandingos, Irish monks, Mande speakers, Egyptians, Nubians, and aliens from outer space from crashing into each other on their way to the Gulf of Mexico. Ivan Van Sertima’s claims of Egypto/Nubian influence on the Olmecs, and thus on subsequent Mesoamerican and New World civilizations, have almost achieved the status of dogma. They are widely taught, not only in Afrocentrically oriented schools, but also in many “multicultural” curricula and cultural sensitivity classes. Olmec heads are prominently displayed in African American History Museums, appear in murals on the African American heritage, and in exhibits for Black History month. Van Sertima’s book, They Came Before Columbus, first printed in 1976, has had 21 editions, and is, typographical errors and all, still in print. Van Sertima has repeated his claims, with minor variations, in non-peer reviewed outlets a number of times since then (1992a, 1992b, 1992c, 1994, 1995, 1998). However, in contrast to the acknowledged Viking presence in Newfoundland around A.D. 1044 (Ingstad 1964, 1969; Davies 1979:229-30), no authentic artifact of African origin has been found in a controlled archaeological excavation. Van Sertima’s books and articles make a multitude of claims which would require volumes to refute in detail. To deal with adequately with a single paragraph of an undocumented and unreferenced claim takes weeks of work and many pages of text. Clearly there is not enough space here to do a point by point discussion. More detailed, though not exhaustive, rebuttals are Ortiz de Montellano, Barbour, and Haslip Viera (1997), Haslip Viera, Ortiz de Montellano, and Barbour (1997) and Ortiz de Montellano (1995). This chapter will sketch out Van Sertima’s principal claims, point out the flaws in a few, and look at the methods and strategies he uses so that readers will be able to compare them with those used by other Afrocentrics. Why are these ideas so attractive to African-Americans? Racism and decades of Eurocentric dominance of school curricula and the media have taken their toll on the self-esteem of African- Americans. I have great sympathy for efforts to improve this self-esteem and to correct the imbalance in coverage of world history. Unfortunately, Afrocentrics feel a need to assert that their ancestors were, not only equal, but actually superior to Europeans and other ethnic groups. Afrocentrics have taken obsolete racist European notions of history and anthropology and turned them upside down. According to many Afrocentrists, all of the world's early civilizations: ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, India, China, Europe and those in the New World were created or inspired by racially "black" peoples.(1) Van Sertima claims not to be an Afrocentric, but his claims for African influence everywhere (Van Sertima, ed. 1985, 2 1989, 1991, 1992, and Van Sertima and Rashidi, eds. 1988 among other works) belie his protestations. Van Sertima postulates two principal contacts between Africa and the New World-- approximately 650 B.C. and A.D. 1311. 1. Egypto/Nubians According to Van Sertima's original proposal (1976: 123-138), the Nubian rulers of ancient Egypt (25th dynasty)(2) organized an expedition to obtain various commodities, including iron, from sources on the Atlantic coast of North Africa, Europe and the British isles during the late 8th or early 7th century B.C. The vessel would have had a mixed crew of Nubian troops in command, a Phoenician navigator, a couple of Hittites, Egyptian sailors, and a number of negroid Egyptian women (Van Sertima 1976: 137- 138). This expedition sailed from the Nile Delta, across the Mediterranean, and down the Atlantic coast of North Africa, where it became caught in some current or storm that sent it across the Atlantic to an eventual landing on the Gulf Coast of Mexico where it came into contact with the receptive, but inferior, Olmecs. At this point, the Olmecs presumably accepted the leaders of the Nubian/Egyptian expedition as their rulers ("black warrior dynasts"), and these individuals, in turn, created, inspired or influenced the creation of the Olmec civilization, which influenced Monte Alban, Teotihuacan, the Maya, and all the other Mesoamerican civilizations that followed (Van Sertima 1976: 261, 264, 267-69). According to Van Sertima, the Nubians became the models for the famous colossal stone heads which the Olmecs produced in the years that followed the alleged contact. The Nubians also provided the impetus for the building of pyramids and ceremonial centers, and introduced a number of technological innovations and practices (mummification, cire-perdue metallurgy, the symbolic use of purple murex dye, weaving, etc.) which influenced Mesoamerican religion, mythology, customs and even the Mesoamerican calendar. Van Sertima also claims that Egyptians influenced South American cultures by introducing the vertical loom to Peru (1976: 167), mummification (1976: 158-160), and burial practices (1976: 200) among others. Exactly when and how these contacts with civilizations on the Pacific coast of South America came about is never spelled out. 2. Bambara/Mandingo A.D. 1310-1311 On the sole basis of a hearsay report written in the 14th Century (al-‘Umari 1927), Van Sertima (1976: 37-107, 1998: 1-28) claims that these “Black Africans” introduced mythological and religious beliefs about Quetzalcoatl and other Aztec gods and particularly those associated with the Aztec long- distance traders, the pochteca, to the New World.(3) Al-’Umari (1927: 74-75) was told by Mansa Musa that his predecessor, Abu-Bakari II, the Mandingo ruler of Mali, had set out from some unspecified location on the western coast of his dominions with 2000 vessels on an expedition with 2000 vessels to find a “river in the sea” and had never been seen again.(4) Given the limited space available there is little need for an extensive discussion of this claim. Even if this voyage had taken place, it was much too late to have much influence on Aztec civilization because the Aztecs are the final chapter of a 3000 year old basic cultural tradition in Mesoamerica. 3 Examples of traits supposedly brought over in A.D. 1300 can be found in Mesoamerican cultures ancestral to the Aztecs before the supposed African trip. Claims about influence on the Aztecs are much more difficult to sustain than those about the Olmecs, because we have a large amount of textual and historical information about Aztec culture. The interconnectedness, context, and historical development of Aztec religion, mythology, and iconography are easily demonstrated. Our discussion will focus on some of Van Sertima’s claims dating from periods when diffusion might have actually influenced Mesoamerican culture. An exception is a claim for the existence of an artifact proving New World contact with Africa. guanín Van Sertima (1995; 1998:3-4) claims that Columbus described an African artifact in the journals of his 3rd voyage.(5) Columbus wanted to find out what the Indians of Española had told him, that there had come from the south and the southeast, Negro people, who brought those spear points made of a metal which they call guanin, of which he had sent samples to the king and queen for assay which [sic] was found to have 32 parts- 18 of gold, 6 of silver, and 8 of copper (Thacher 1903-1904: vol. 2, 380).(6) Van Sertima continues, “The proportion of gold, silver, and copper alloys were found to be identical with spears being forged at that time in African Guinea. Apart from the eyewitness testimony of the Native Americans, here is incontestable metallurgical evidence from Europeans themselves (their meticulous assays establishing the identical proportions of metal alloys in the spears found in the Caribbean and the spears made in Guinea) (Van Sertima 1998: 3).” Even though our primary focus is on the Olmec period, we need to briefly deal with Van Sertima’s claims that guanín is an artifact. Van Sertima presents the claim of identity between African and New World alloy spears as if it were a continuing paraphrase of the quote from Columbus. In fact, neither Thacher, Las Casas, Columbus nor anyone else says anything about African gold spears, their analysis, or their identity with the gold alloy from the New World.(7) Van Sertima asserts this identity with no evidence whatsoever. This complete lack of evidence disposes of his claim, but we will discuss the matter briefly. Copper/gold and copper/gold/silver alloys are not distinguished from each other and are referred to generically as tumbaga.(8) Guanín is a word in Arawak, the language of the inhabitants of Hispaniola, not Mandingo and was, therefore, not imported. Rivet and Arsandaux (1946: 60 ff.) show that in many Arawakan languages words like guanín or guani and words resembling karakoli, in Carib languages, designate tumbaga alloys. In his discussion of this issue, Van Sertima relies on the Afrocentric hyperdiffusionist Harold Lawrence, not on Columbus and the early chroniclers. Lawrence (1987) claims that “Mandinga traders” from West Africa made “several” voyages to the Americas after 1300 and established colonies in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, and the island of St. Vincent.

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